1. Seeing Details and Patterns in Poetry
Visualizing Texts
Seeing Details and Patterns in Poetry

2. Read the following haiku and complete the work on the right.
When I look carefully
I see the nazuna blooming
By the hedge!
Make notes for each of the following elements of the poem: Wildflower, Hedge, Speaker
What is the color?
What is the shape?
Where are each of these in relation to one another?
Is the object natural and free or controlled and shaped?
What emotion is implied or suggested?
Which object is most important?
What makes each object noticeable?

3. Composition
The poem is a composition – an arrangement of ideas in some order to suggest meaning and importance.
Thus, the poem “unfolds” visually and meaningfully through the examination of its composition.
Studying a work’s composition will help arrive at a meaning, even of something as seemingly simple as this haiku.

4. Now, some individual and group work . . .
Break up into groups of 5.
Assign one poem (“Autumn River Song” and “In the Station of a Metro” are considered one poem) to each member of the group.
Complete the assignment listed on the paper.
Come back together and share your poem and the ideas from it with the group.

5. Sharing time (How Preschool of ME)
1st Round – Meet with the people who are reading the same poem – discuss your primary understandings (10 minutes)
2nd round – Meet with your original group. Read and share your understandings of the poem (about 4 minutes per person) (20-24 minutes)

6. Aight: What have we learned?
Sometimes we might read too much into a poem
Sometimes a poem is just a story
Emotion might be connected to an object
Structure and punctuation are important
Individual’s past experiences form/interfere with? Meaning
Can be used to capture a feeling of a time merely
Consider the author’s feelings

7. “And now for something completely different?”
Read and annotate William Wordsworth’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud.”
Pay particular attention to the objects that seem to be paired AND the oppositions in the poem.
HOMEWORK follows on the next three slides.

8. Pairings
For five of the pairings below and on the right, identify how they are similar and how they are different.
cloud/That floats high” and “Beside the lake/Beneath the tree”
“vales” and “hills”
“stars that shine” and “Ten thousand” (daffodils)
“I wandered lonely” and “a crowd/ A host of golden daffodils/ Fluttering and dancing . . .”
“milky way” and “the bay”
“never-ending line” and “margin”
“Twinkling stars” and “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance”
“waves danced” and “they (daffodils)/ Outdid waves”

9. Oppositions Paired Opposites Word or Phrase Vs. Word or Phrase
Earth/sky
Vale and hill
Cloud
Solitude/company
Stillness/movement
Land/water
Forest/field
Boundaries/infinity

10. Now, from analysis to meaning
Create a single sentence (one friggin’ sentence, I mean it!) that states what Wordsworth’s poem means and how he communicates that meaning.
So, you need an opinion on meaning, and a subject on materials.
For example: The imagery of lifelessness contrasted with the imagery of abundance demonstrate that death inevitably leads to rebirth.